White knight shares prizemoney

JO MOIR

Last updated 05:00 13/12/2012

ANDY JACKSON

Bell Block Primary School student Nicolas Magon, 9, won $1000 in a Shell Petroleum competition. Nicolas has donated the $1000 to the school to go towards new interactive whiteboards for the classrooms.

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A Bell Block 9-year-old has embraced the festive spirit by donating his $1000 prize to his school.

After winning the cash in a Petroleum Skills Association Science Fair, year 5 Bell Block primary school student Nicolas Magon decided to give up his prize. He's put it towards interactive whiteboards for his school mates.

The TSB Community Trust has come to the party with extra money to cover the rest of the costs and also pay for a few extra whiteboards. Once they're all installed this week all of the senior school classrooms will have one.

For the science fair Nicolas built a 3D map of Taranaki showing all the oil fields.

It was a family affair, built at home, with the help of his parents and his older brother, Kristian.

Nicolas' teacher, Andrew Georgeson, said the interactive whiteboards have millions of uses and everything done in class can be saved to the teacher's computer.

"You can do brainstorming and planning like it's a normal whiteboard but it saves it all, converts it to text, and puts it in a document on your computer," Mr Georgeson said.

Nicolas said putting the money towards something everyone can use was pretty satisfying.

"I don't really like science and I'm not that good at it but it was cool to win the money," he said.

More of a story teller and creative writer Nicolas says he will probably enter again next year - just to see if he can win again.